consciousness of self might be schematized as a straight line
connecting two points, in which one point represents the
foreground, and the other the background, of consciousness.
If we now accept this view, and ask under what conditions the
sense of self may be lost, the answer is at once suggested.
It will happen when the "twoness" disappears, so that the line
connecting and separating the two objects in our scheme drops
out or is indefinitely decreased. When background or foreground
tends to disappear or to merge either into the other, or when
background or foreground makes an indissoluble unity or
unbreakable circle, the content of consciousness approaches
absolute unity. There is no "relating" to be done, no
"transition" to be made. The condition, then, for the feeling
of personality is no longer present, and there results a
feeling of complete unity with the object of attention; and if
this object of attention is itself without parts or differences,
there results an empty void, Nirvana.
Suppose that I gaze, motionless, at a single bright light until
all my bodily sensations have faded. Then one of the "points"
in our scheme has dropped out. In my mind there reigns but one
thought. The transition feeling goes, for there is nothing to
be "related." Now "it is one blaze, about me and within me;"
I am that light, and myself no longer. My consciousness is a
unit or a blank, as you please. If you say that I am self-
hypnotized, I may reply that I have simply ceased to feel
myself different from the content of my consciousness, because
that content has ceased to allow a transition between its terms.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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